Last month I was surprised and excited (if you recall) as I observed my issue of DIGESTED.02 sitting on the new relase shelf along with all the other big boys in Minotaur Books. At this month's meetup I again went into Minotaur and saw DIGESTED.01 (!) staring out at me with all the other trades. If you're down there soon... it's on the current trade shelves, and issue-2 is in the indy (Graphic Novels) shelves, all categorised alphabetically under 'D' for DIGESTED.

A real nice moment for my little book to be sitting amongst all the other great trades. I had my chest out and was strutting about like a peacock :)

It wasn't long before I had to high tail it out of there and make my way to the meetup. I was 30 mins late, and about nine people were more punctual than I.

It's the first time I'd talked face-to-face with the talented Mr Jason Paulos. The way Jason describes his upbringing and life thusfar (concerning comics), resonated with me. It seems the trials and tensions of people in comics that peck away in isloation at pieces of paper is universal. One thing Jason mentioned was; "If you can't get a job in comics, then you may as well just do the comics you want anyway."... And it's true. It's intuitively self-evident, but at times we need to have it spoken (and heard) just to exhale and realise that - although comics are a hard slog - they're also a great personal reward.

It wasn't long before the meet became one of our more chunky ones. (You missed out on a lot of beer and fun, Bedford!)

Click on the above panorama shot to see it bigger. Yes, they're all there for the meet! (See Philip Bentley rushing to be in two shots of the photo!) -ha.

The Brad Pitt and George Clooney of the comics scene.

All the regulars were there.

The chirpy Jason Franks was there. He showed me a printout of a rare auto-bio comic that he'd just had illustrated. Simply awesome.

James Andre has just released a few nice books. Monster Addict (illustrated by the masterful Tom Bonin), and XXX Neon Sign (above) which I illustrated. Go buy them.

James Andre is a writing 'machine'... But he's also a drinking machine..."This is the way you do it", says James. "First the fire...

"... and then the soother."

I even twisted a few of the more 'doodling' fellas arms to put something down in my sketchbook...

03 November 2010

Starting to plan the next issue of DIGESTED, so it's time to crank the mental handle of that music box the monkey hits his cymbals to... but in the meantime, there's no better meditation than scribbling in my sketchbook.

Then I pick out some of the sketches that I think might look good as stand-alone illustrations. I scan the page, then blow up the selected shots slightly to sit in the middle of the page. I then lightly trace it with my trusty blue clutch-pencil.

Below are two images I penciled and inked during my lunch-break.

I don't know about you, but whenever I'm sketching characters, I always imagine 'who' they might be as people as I chip them onto the page with my pencil. Often it's how stories begin to develop in my head.

For some reason, the last guy just says 'pervert' to me... or 'cartoonist.... I can't decide which :)